Facilitating Climate Change Responses: A Report of Two Workshops on Knowledge from the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2010)

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9 Cross-Cutting Issues in Adaptation INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS Roger Kasperson Roger Kasperson opened this section of the workshop by saying that a lot of adaptation is going on, and there is a theoretical framework for that—muddling through. He said that adaptation responses vary by sector and have some specificity, so that there are no golden answers that apply to everything. He suggested that something may be said about how to avoid common pitfalls, but it is not easy for social scientists to talk about how to transform entire systems. At the end of the workshop, people should try not only to pull together what they have learned, but also to take on re- ally hard questions, such as: How can large adaptations move forward at the system level? What advice can social scientists offer to the government about major transformations needed for the climate change problem? How can success be assessed? Paul Stern suggested that for government, it is important to deal with practical issues and not just the major social science questions, such as what major social transformations are needed and how to get at them. Neil Adger noted that there may also be important fundamental social science questions related to adaptation, such as about processes of transformation, the evolution of preferences over time, demographic change, and relocation of settlements and economic activity. 11 

114 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES LESSONS LEARNED FROM PUBLIC HEALTH ON THE PROCESS OF ADAPTATION Kristie Ebi Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Kristie Ebi began by observing that the public health field has 150 years of experience in dealing with everything from slow changes in factors affect- ing human health to dramatic epidemics. It includes national and interna- tional organizations and institutions for identifying risks and implementing programs to reduce or eliminate the threats. Because some of the experience in this field could provide insights to improve the process of adaptation in health and other sectors, it might be useful to organize case studies on lessons learned around selected questions, for example, communicating to facilitate behavioral changes. The public health field has extensive experience with communicating on a range of issues. For example, 40 years of experience with communication has taught that different audiences need different messages on the hazards of cigarette smoking: effective messages for young adults differ from those for older adults. It is possible to effect behavioral change, but the most ef- fective way to do so is often not predictable, and a variety of options need to be tested to determine which are most effective. She related a story from Rita Colwell about how, in Bangladesh, a simple practice of filtering water through used sari cloth dramatically reduced the cholera burden in one region. Ebi noted that one or two individuals can make a significant differ- ence quickly, as was the case with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Such experiences can teach lessons about messages for adaptive action. The public health literature identifies five prerequisites for action: awareness that a problem exists, understanding of the causes, a sense that the problem matters, the capability to influence the problem, and the politi- cal will to act. Political will is often the most significant constraint. An adaptation option of considerable interest is the development of early warning systems based on environmental variables. A challenge with many of the early warning systems developed in public health is that they were not designed to adjust to a changing climate; they implicitly assumed a stable climate. In many cases, it will be a challenge to proactively iden- tify through an early warning system where a disease might change its geographic range due to climate change. Furthermore, there is no definitive approach for deciding when to retire early warning systems in some places and open them in others as diseases change their range. This means that some mistakes will be made. She noted that in public health, thresholds are often constructs, not biological limits. For example, the definition of high blood pressure is based on judgments about the costs and benefits of 

11 CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION treating people in different groups—there is no biological justification for choosing a particular blood pressure as the threshold above which risks increase significantly. Ebi emphasized the difficulty of maintaining public health systems over time. Yellow fever was controlled in every country where control of the mosquito vector was tried, but that costs money and takes effort. Mosquitoes can reappear where there has been failure of vector control. A lesson here is that climate change adaptation can require a very long commitment. She also noted that things can go very badly even with the best of in- tentions. In Bangladesh, for example, in an effort to stop childhood deaths from water contamination, there was a large effort to drill tube wells that accessed uncontaminated ground water. However, some wells were seri- ously contaminated with arsenic. The implication was that although there is a bias for looking for simple, single-technology fixes, it is important to understand the broader implications of implementing a technology. In the discussion, in response to a question, Ebi observed that effective early warning systems require a process, not just a one-time design focused on identifying a threshold for action; the actions to be undertaken also need to be carefully designed and tested. Incorporating climate change into public health systems means considering what is likely to need adjustment, so that systems can be easily modified with additional climate change. On the topic of decision thresholds, Howard Kunreuther said that thresholds are often used for regulatory purposes, even when there is uncer- tainty and a continuum is better justified scientifically. Ebi responded that public health has moved to an approach based on judgments of how many people could be saved by setting thresholds at different levels. THE NETWORK STRUCTURE OF CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: VIEWING NETWORKS AS OPPORTUNITIES AND BARRIERS TO SUCCESSFUL LEARNING Adam Henry1 West Virginia University Adam Henry began by saying that climate change adaptation is an important form of policy learning, which is one of his central interests. Because no one knows which policies will work well in advance, risk man- agement needs to be adaptive or iterative. He said that to understand policy 1The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/The%20Network% 20Structure%20of%20Climate%20Change%20Adaptation_%20Viewing%20Networks%20as %20Both.pdf [accessed September 2010]. 

116 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES learning, it is necessary to engage in network analysis and that a network perspective can help one to understand opportunities for, and barriers to, successful climate adaptation. In particular, networks can facilitate or hinder policy learning. They can facilitate learning by promoting coordina- tion across sectors or scales, and they can hinder learning by fragmenting or shutting out information. To promote successful adaptation, one goal may be to create certain types of networks and avoid others. The design of adaptive institutions must account for the fact that policy networks self-organize. Henry examined one of many possible applications of network analysis to climate change adaptation. He noted that network sampling techniques can be used to map the participants in climate change adaptation. Stake- holders can be linked to each other directly or indirectly, by physical inter- actions and by cognitive relationships (e.g., trust). He said that standard statistical methods of analysis are often inappropriate because of interde- pendencies, but other methods exist. The definition of adaptation from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—“adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climactic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities”—implies challenges for learning. These include understanding how the system works, avoiding perverse learning, inducing learning that occurs between communities of knowledge and action, and the learning of common goals and values. Net- works can affect learning by exchanging information, promoting dialogue, building trust and credibility, spreading innovation, and diffusing values, beliefs, and other cognitions. Henry also noted a common belief that net- works that link diverse agents across disciplines, world views, etc., have the effect of improving problem-solving capacity. He observed that there is some support for this belief from theory and practice. “Network” has many meanings. It is a mathematical abstraction that focuses on the relationships among agents. Networks can be studied with mathematical techniques from graph theory and social network analysis to analyze the effects of network position and structure. The nodes in networks are the agents; the group of all the agents is the boundary of the network; the links are the relationships between nodes. The set of all the links gives the network structure. In popular usage, networks are seen as a good thing; however, there are many network structures, and different structures can function differently and enable learning to different degrees. The question of which structures facilitate learning can be asked at different scales: the egocentric or single-actor scale and the macro- or network-wide scale. The most coherent discussion of the effect of network structure on the capacity to learn comes from the collaborative policy literature (e.g., 

11 CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION Schneider et al., 2003), which focuses on fragmentations of networks (“structural holes”) that prevent innovation, such as when there are com- munities defined by dense connections within that are linked with each other only by sparse connections. This literature hypothesizes that increas- ing collaboration across structural holes (e.g., across sectors, jurisdictions, levels of government, ideological divisions) will increase the likelihood of successful adaptation—but there has not yet been much testing of this hypothesis. At the egocentric level of analysis, Henry identified four hypotheses in the literature. First, the more expansive that ego (the learning agent) is in the sense of number of collaborations or links, the greater the likelihood of successful adaptation. The assumption here is that more information is better. Second, reciprocity (connections with flows in both directions and without hierarchical relationships) promotes learning. The underlying theory is that learning is a coproduction process, not one just within indi- viduals. Third, clustering (embeddedness in triadic relationships) increases the propensity for successful learning. The theory is that redundancy im- proves trust and legitimacy. Fourth, if the agent goes to diverse information sources, it has a better chance of success in adaptation. This idea presumes that agents apply good ideas to their particular situations. Henry reported on a study he conducted on 71 networks, which does not support all these hypotheses. For example, it does not support the first hypothesis and supports the second only contingently. However, network variables explain a large amount of variance in a measure of innovation. This means that something is known about the kinds of networks that adapt well. Given that knowledge, Henry asked, what can be done to develop adaptive networks? One issue is that networks self-organize: participation in them is generally voluntary. Also, individuals may position themselves so that networks become barriers to successful adaptation. Ronald Burt’s (2004) work suggests that although structural holes may be bad overall, some individual actors gain power by spanning them and so try to maintain them. The advocacy coalition framework of Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993) suggests that networks form around shared belief systems, a process that limits diversity. Some of Henry’s data support this model. Overall, Henry concluded that the network perspective is useful, that network sampling and modeling methods are useful, and that more work is needed on learning within networks. In the discussion, Henry was asked about learning in climate change adaptation networks: Does he equate successful learning with success- ful adaptation? Can networks can be successful at learning the wrong things? How can the lessons of experience be used to design networks for adaptation? 

11 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES Henry replied that there are many evaluative criteria related to learn- ing. For example, shared understanding is an indicator of learning even if network members do not agree on policy. Actors may arrive at a common strategy even if their values do not change. He added that because indi- viduals span different kinds of networks, it is important to be clear about the boundaries of the networks. He said that the big empirical questions concern how to characterize networks that do well or do not do well. THE ROLE OF URBAN AREAS IN ADAPTATION AND EFFECTIVE STAKEHOLDER-RESEARCHER ADAPTATION PROCESS Cynthia Rosenzweig2 NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Cynthia Rosenzweig explained that she has been working with New York City for a decade, since the first National Assessment of the Conse- quences of Climate Change. It was clear from the start that cities like New York have global connections as well as local roots. At the 2009 Copen- hagen conference, New York participated in the mayors’ summit, which was hosted by the mayor of Copenhagen. Unlike the experience at the nations’ summit, the mayors had no trouble setting targets and timetables or creating adaptation plans. This was the case for several reasons. The vulnerabilities of cities are acute, with high population densities, coastal exposure in many, higher levels of heat, and poorer air quality. On the mitigation side, cities are responsible for 40-80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, depending on how the estimate is made. Also, mayors are closer to the citizens than heads of state are. And cities have some readily available policy levers. They operate critical infrastructure (e.g., they can clean storm drains to prevent floods), and they have budgets for maintaining it. Cities also want a place at the table for funding for adaptation. Cities also face barriers to action. For example, their leaders have other pressing issues, constrained resources, electoral concerns, and all deal with multiple jurisdictional issues. But cities are forming international linkages around climate change. C-40 is the large-city climate summit, and the Inter- national Council for Local Environmental Initiatives or Local Governments for Sustainability is playing a major role, for example, by organizing side events at Copenhagen. The intercity effort is considering questions about learning and about transfer of knowledge between cities in high- and low- income countries. 2 The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/Thoughts%20on %20the%20Role%20of%20Urban%20Areas%20in%20Adaptation%20and%20Effective% 20Stakeholder-.pdf [accessed September 2010]. 

11 CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION All this activity is leading to an intense research interest in the role of cities in climate change and in developing an effective assessment process for climate change and cities. IPCC has responded by giving cities a more prominent place in the next assessment. An ongoing assessment for cities may also be needed, parallel to the one for the countries. The United States could take the lead on this, inasmuch as it already supports 50 percent of the IPCC’s budget. The New York experience identified several challenges: (1) responding to the need for rapid, recurring assessments; (2) enhancing coordination among stakeholders, jurisdictions, and scenarios; (3) handling the uncer- tainty of climate information; (4) revising standards and regulations; and (5) defining and implementing the role of the federal government. Adapta- tion planning worked in New York for several reasons. There was high- level buy-in by the mayor and the long-term planning office above the city agencies, which was important for coordinating across agencies. An outside consultant designed the process, and a stakeholder task force attracted agencies and nongovernmental groups. Expert knowledge was separated into a technical advisory committee (Mayor Bloomberg changed the name to the New York City Panel on Climate Change), with public and private participation (e.g., involvement of the legal community). The process has not always been cordial because there are differences in interests and cul- ture. The experts are analogous to the parents of the climate change issue; the cities are like the teenagers who are growing up and have to take it over. Rosenzweig said that for successful adaptation, it is important to set up ongoing structures like these, rather than one-time activities. Workshop participants raised a variety of issues during the discussion: how to engage cities that are resistant to taking action, how expert knowl- edge can be engaged to meet the needs of the cities, how cities can function effectively within a process dominated by nation-states, what smaller cities can do, how experience can be transferred to smaller communities, how New York overcame myopia to focus on long-term goals, and whether there were critically important boundary organizations in the New York City process. Rosenzweig noted the approach used by the Regional Integrated Sci- ences and Assessments Program and the fact that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has created an urban RISA. She said that urban research centers like this can be very important. She said that the New York City Panel on Climate Change provided common scenarios at stakeholders’ request, with the associated uncertainties. She said every actor has to be involved and that coordination, rather than competition, must be the goal. 

120 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES OBSTACLES AND OPPORTUNITIES: LESSONS FROM CASE STUDIES OF ADAPTATION TO A CHANGING CLIMATE Neil Leary Dickinson College Neil Leary described a project under the international SysTem for Anal- ysis Research and Training (START) Program that produced a set of 24 case studies executed by groups of researchers and stakeholders in developing countries in extremely varied social and environmental contexts. The case studies indicated that because adaptation benefits are largely internalized (much more so than mitigation benefits), countries have a strong incentive for adaptation and it is happening in many places. Still, researchers com- monly see an adaptation deficit. The reason, Leary said, lies in obstacles to adaptation, which roughly include (1) social inertia (lack of determination or political will), (2) lack of means, and (3) the public-good aspects of adaptation. Political will or deter- mination appears when people find a substantial threat to things they value; when reducing the risks is a priority on par with other major goals; when they can see effective and affordable options; and when they know enough about the problem to make wise choices. The case studies identified four reasons for lack of determination to adapt: one is information problems (e.g., doubts about whether recent trends are reliable indicators of climate change). A second is competing or opposing objectives (perceived risks are low, distant in time, or less than pressing current priorities. Attitudes changed somewhat when climate change was connected to climate variabil- ity and extremes and when climate change was seen as threatening things the particular people valued, such as health, livelihoods, or development. A third reason was improper or misaligned incentives that shield some actors from the consequences of risky behavior. For example, in Mongolia, after collectives were dissolved, land was treated as a commons and herders were free to graze on public lands, leading to underinvestment in improvements of the pasture and water supplies that could build resistance to stresses. Fi- nally, lack of agency or inability to act was a significant obstacle in several case studies. Lack of financial resources was a universal problem. In some countries, poverty, degraded natural resources, inadequate infrastructure, weak local institutions, and poor governance were problems. There are significant public-good aspects to adaptation, including the needs for com- munity development, poverty reduction, and the provision of information and cocreation of knowledge. 3The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/Obstacles%20and %20Opportunities_%20%20Lessons%20from%20Case%20Studies%20of%20Adaptation% 20to%20a%20Chan.pdf [accessed September 2010]. 

121 CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION Opportunities for intervention to increase action on adaptation include strengthening the web that connects actors: strengthening nodes in the web, adding new nodes to meet strategic needs, strengthening links of knowledge to action, providing opportunities and resources to increase interactions between nodes, making connections across scales, development of programs for cocreation of knowledge, South-South knowledge sharing, and “pro- poor” development. In the discussion, one participant underscored the importance of capac- ity building efforts in the South and said that START has worked to build science-policy dialogues and improve risk communication, which increases the need for social science involvement. Carmin asked whether the type of innovation (e.g., in communication or in technology) influenced the results. Adger asked about the role of poverty (including seasonal poverty) in ad- aptation. Ian Burton noted that cross-country comparisons are difficult for this project because it started quickly, with limited time for design. Chet Ropelewski noted that climate trends are hidden by variability and asked for expansion on how information about climate variability was useful for inducing action. Leary said that technology was not high on the list of barriers to adap- tation. However, the inherent weakness of local organizations was a major barrier—organizations that are poor, busy, or include people who do not see climate as connected to their visions are unlikely to act on adaptation. Getting support for the cocreation of knowledge was a difficult point. Pov- erty was an issue mainly as it related to capability. ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH LONG-TERM CONTRACTS Howard Kunreuther4 Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Based on joint research with Neil Doherty, Dwight Jaffee, Robert Meyer, Erwann Michel-Kerjan, and Mark Pauly Howard Kunreuther began with a comment on Leary’s presentation. He noted that there are important public-good aspects of adaptation: in- terdependence (if you fail to act, it affects your neighbors), the “ex-post issue” (if you do not adapt now, everyone else has to rescue you later), and the need to create incentive systems that give people immediate returns to overcome myopia. 4 The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/Adaptation% 20to%20Climate%20Change%20Through%20Long%20Term%20Contracts.pdf [accessed September 2010]. 

122 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES The multi-investigator research project that led to this presentation makes three main points: (1) individuals focus on short-term horizons, and disasters are below the threshold of concern; (2) people therefore fail to take adaptation measures prior to disaster (e.g., people commonly cancel insurance after it fails to pay off in a few years, apparently thinking of it as an unproductive investment); and (3) these problems could be addressed with well-enforced long-term contracts and short-term economic incentives to deal with myopia. Kunreuther defined the present as a new era of catastrophe. Property losses from natural hazards have been increasing over time, and insurance has failed to cover the losses—even the insured losses—so public-sector aid is needed afterward. Losses have increased much more than even the insurance industry expected. The reasons include increased urbanization and value at risk. For example, the population of Florida has increased 590 percent since 1950: the 1992 Hurricane Andrew, if it had hit in 2004, would have produced $120 billion in losses, compared with the $46­­­­­­­ bil- lion of losses from Hurricane Katrina. Weather patterns also have changed. More intense weather-related events, combined with sea level rise and the increased value at risk, have increased the risk significantly. Insured coastal exposure as of December 2007 was $2.5 trillion in Florida and $2.4 trillion in New York. The benefits of adaptation are therefore huge. A 500-year storm event in Florida would produce $16­­­­­­­0 billion in losses with the exist- ing infrastructure, but having all the buildings meet building codes would save half the damage, or $82 billion. Property owners do not invest in cost-effective adaptation measures for several reasons. One is myopia. People pay little attention and do not pay attention for long. They also underestimate the probability of costly events. Paying the up-front cost of adaptation also is a major problem (people lack the liquidity). Also, people anticipate that they will be bailed out. Many think they may be moving soon, so their investments will not pay back. Hurricanes produce a lot of damage from storm surge, and homeowners’ insurance does not cover it. The National Flood Insurance Program does not cover wind damage. Thus, the insurance that people actually have does not fully cover the risks they face. Kunreuther’s group has developed a proposal for long-term flood in- surance, a product that private industry has no interest in providing. He noted that, in the 1920s, mortgages normally were written for only 1-3 years, and when companies were in trouble, they refused to renew them. The private sector got into the business of offering long-term mortgages only because government started securing them. Similarly, government can offer long-term flood insurance first, and the insurance industry can get into the picture later. The plan is to offer long-term insurance for floods and financing for 

12 CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION adaptation, both tied to the property. The insurance rates have to reflect risk, using updated flood maps. Low-income people currently residing in flood-prone areas would be offered insurance vouchers, on a model similar to food stamps. This plan would give everyone protection and a signal for safety. It would protect homeowners from water damage from floods and hurricanes. It would encourage adaptation by giving a discount on insur- ance premiums for taking action. Long-term insurance is called for because people otherwise cancel their policies. In Florida, 6­­­­­­­2 percent of people who had insurance in 2000 had canceled it by 2005; in Mississippi, 83 percent no longer had it. The program would tie the insurance to the property even after resale and would offer long-term loans for protection, with the payments becom- ing worthwhile because of the lower insurance premiums. Under this plan, homeowners would save money, insurers would avoid catastrophic losses, and taxpayers and the government would avoid disaster relief expenses. The effect of climate change on long-term insurance needs analysis. With climate change the government is the only ultimate insurer against catastrophe. Data are needed on the impact of climate change on sea level rise, storm surge damage, and the effects of adaptation actions on disaster losses. Data from the United Kingdom show that adaptation combined with climate change lowers damage compared with no adaptation and no cli- mate change. Kunreuther ended with a list of research and policy questions that need to be addressed to make choices on such things as the appropriate length of long-term contracts and ways to protect insurers against changes in risk estimates and homeowners against insolvency of insurers. Long-term flood insurance was presented as a good policy beginning for encouraging investment in adaptation; however, research is needed to determine how to incorporate climate change in such a strategy. OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS TO CHARACTERIZING AND ASSESSING ADAPTIVE CAPACITY Maria Carmen Lemos University of Michigan Maria Carmen Lemos observed that the literature on adaptive capacity began with a list of things that might increase the ability to adapt. Theory has become more sophisticated with time and now recognizes trade-offs and the impossibility of taking all adaptive actions at once. She noted that adaptive capacity is difficult to measure because (1) it is a latent condition (you do not know how much capacity you have until you try to use it); (2) it is dynamic and relates to time, scale, and values; (3) there is a lack of baseline data; (4) there are problems with some measurement techniques 

124 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES (e.g., cost-benefit analysis); (5) it may vary with scale; and (6­­­­­­­) there are many unknowns. Moreover, adaptive capacity is nested: capacity at one scale affects capacity at other scales. There is a need to “unpack” the concept of adaptation and related con- cepts (e.g., what is knowledge? technology?). Technical knowledge, such as climate model information, has equity issues. Everyone wants it (and any- one with a computer can get it), but it is used differently, access is unequal, there are dissemination constraints, and there are opportunity costs. She noted that adaptive policies in Brazil have had varying outcomes. Of the three she examined, the one that was most apparently successful involved drought management in Ceará. In a drought, water is usually al- located for the short term, but adaptive capacity for future droughts does not increase. A two-tiered approach could make short-term adjustments, such as water distribution, combined with long-term structural reform to addresses the inequalities in vulnerability. This could be a virtuous cycle. She added that making risk management more democratic is likely to be a good strategy. She also noted that, especially in developing countries but also to some extent in the United States, adaptive capacity to climate change may be very similar to adaptive capacity generally. In the discussion, Sanchez-Rodriguez asked if it is worthwhile to try to develop a general theory of adaptation when so much about it is specific. Lemos replied that adaptation options are greatly varied, but that adap- tive capacity may be more general because it can be applied to a variety of situations. Kasperson commented that adaptive capacity is a means, not an end, so that the key questions are how much of the adaptive capacity is actually used and why. Bonnie McCay noted that adaptive strategies and response processes were a topic of general interest in the 1970s (e.g., farming practices protect against small frosts and marriage patterns protect against killing frosts). She noted the absence of reference to this literature and suggested that perhaps climate change is so catastrophic that those concepts are not applicable. IDENTIFYING AND OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO ADAPTATION: INSIGHTS FROM THE TRENCHES OF MUDDLING THROUGH Susanne Moser (with Julia Ekstrom) Susanne Moser explained that her presentation comes from a literature review study that looked inductively at the literature on adaptation, focus- 5 The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/Identifying%20 and%20Overcoming%20Barriers%20to%20Adaptation_%20Insights%20from%20the%20 Trenches%20of.pdf [accessed September 2010]. 

12 CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION ing on barriers to adaptation—a topic that was not discussed much five years ago but has been a major topic in this workshop. It focuses mostly on planned adaptation. Moser distinguished between limits, which are absolute thresholds, and barriers, which are things that can delay or stop adaptation processes or make them less effective and efficient. She emphasized that her framework is not normative (i.e., she does not presume that all barriers are bad and need to be overcome), but descriptive. For example, she noted that some barriers may be good to have and also that something like lack of money, which looks like a limit to someone who lacks money, may look like a bar- rier to a researcher. The study presented the diagnosis of barriers within a decision-making framework. While thus explicitly focused on a human sys- tem (the decision-making process, the decisions, and the decision makers), the framework does not ignore the physical or ecological constraints within which this human system exists. The framework, while actor-centric, also considers the contexts of action, including governance and the human and biophysical environments. It emphasizes processes and also is interested in outcomes. The conceptual framework is iterative: the adaptation decision- making process includes three basic phases—understanding, planning, and managing, in a circular influence diagram presented as including three phases and nine substages: understanding (problem detection, information gathering, and problem [re]definition); planning (development of options, assessment of options, selection of options); and managing (implementa- tion, monitoring, and evaluation), all returning again to problem detec- tion (see Figure 9-1). She noted that barriers can exist at any point in the chain but that there is little practical knowledge on the implementation (postdecision) side of the diagram, because few adaptation decisions have reached that stage. To diagnose barriers, one must ask, at each stage of the process, what can slow the process and what causes these impediments. For example, in problem detection, the barriers can include the existence of the signal of a problem, whether people detect it, whether it passes a threshold of concern, and whether people think they can respond. For each of these kinds of bar- riers, there is a longer list of more specific diagnostic questions related to the various actors whose actions can help or prevent problem detection. Inductively, five barriers come up most often: leadership, resources, infor- mation and communication, participation, and cultural cognition. How can these barriers be overcome? It depends on their type. They may be proximate or remote in terms of space and jurisdiction, and, in terms of time, they may be contemporary or result from a legacy (e.g., a law). Barriers that are remote and result from a legacy are the hardest to change. The next steps in her research effort will be to test this model in four 

126 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES FIGURE 9-1 A schematic representation of the phases and substages of the adapta- tion decision-making process. The understanding phase is shown in light shading, the planning phase in dark shading, and the managing phase is in medium shad- Figure 9-1 ing. In practical reality, decision makers may not go through each of the stages R01827 completely or in this orderly fashion. SOURCE: Susanne Moser. Used withbitmapped image uneditable permission. San Francisco Bay case studies at the municipal level, to see if the frame- work is useful. A larger adaptation study is also connected to this frame- work, with interventions being planned. A separate study will look at ways of framing the issue for different audiences. In the discussion, Ashwini Chhatre asked about “invisible” adaptation or continuous social change. If this is happening where one is not look- ing for it, how can one detect its signal? He noted also that researchers are looking at adaptation only with respect to things that they perceive as needing a response. Actors get signals from everything, not just climate change. He said that looking at climate change creates a selection bias. Kasperson rephrased this idea in terms of Burton’s idea of “incidental” adaptation: policy makers are asked about what was intended when they did something adaptive, but actors cannot answer questions about intention clearly for themselves. Moser agreed with the fundamental issue of barriers also arising in unplanned/incidental adaptation, but she reemphasized that this study focused on planned, deliberate, conscious adaptation processes. She also said that her study is examining actions whether or not they were undertaken explicitly as responses to climate change. 

12 CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION PRIORITIES FROM PRACTITIONERS FOR SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH Roger Kasperson Kasperson asked practitioners who were present at the workshop to suggest what they have not heard that they would like to know more about. The following topics were mentioned. • hat are some specific win-win solutions that can be pursued in W adaptation contexts? • ow can the benefits of adaptation action versus business as usual H best be demonstrated and quantified? • ow can incentives be aligned to favor collective action on H adaptation? • ow can leadership be facilitated and the risks of leadership be H reduced? • hat is the appropriate timing for infrastructure decisions, such as W for actions in anticipation of future sea level rise? • hat should the federal government be doing to support and W facilitate adaptation in localities, especially those with fewer resources? • ne-time studies have only a limited impact on decision mak- O ers. How can the approach be shifted to one of systematic monitoring? • hat is really meant by adaptive capacity, and how can it best be W built? • cosystem managers are concerned with tipping points and ecosys- E tem collapse. What research and methods are needed to identify tipping points and to link them to stressors? • Mega-fauna” are an important issue in climate change. How can “ their importance to various stakeholders be assessed? • he field is well short of what needs to be done in communicating T about climate risks. What are the information needs and strategies for real dialogue? When asked about important next steps, the practitioners present iden- tified these: • Serious efforts at capacity building • etter coordination and collaboration and more engagement of B stakeholders • Increased dialogue to define information needs 

12 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES • aution about recommending best practices for different issue C domains • Building more inclusive knowledge networks • nderstanding that conflicts may sometimes have positive value U and should not always be resisted